Jerry Rubin on Donahue

Classic. I haven’t seen this in years, since it was replayed during the “Yippie vs. Yuppy” debate tour between Rubin and Abbie Hoffman after Rubin had determined that “power is in money, not people” just a few years after this interview. My favorite part is when, following a diatribe about Donahue’s commercialism, Rubin tries to push his book – like any Donahue guest.

And here’s post-underground Abbie Hoffman coming to Rubin’s defense, somewhat. Both were clearly over 30 by then.

8 comments

Indeed a classic — and it was around the same time (spring 1970) that I heard Rubin speak to an overflowing crowd at Stanford: “kill your parents” was part of his shtick back then. Hoffman comes across well in the other clip.– Maybe it’s because of my memories of the pseudo-radical, “spoiled child” language of the late 60s and early 70s that I don’t find the Tea Party rhetoric as troubling as others do.

There are some key difference anon, the primary one for me being that Rubin had no significant constituency in the Democratic Party. Some elected Democrats privately sympathized with Rubin while publicly condemning him, whereas most elected Republicans today privately hate the Tea Partiers but publicly back them.

Also, Hoffman came across well because he was a little bit older and his views a little more nuanced. For me, the best moment of the interview was his statement: “his philosophy is different from mine, but he is my friend.”

Too funny. I’d actually never seen either of those clips. The Rubin one is great because it reminds me of a thing I did in high school:

I forget what class it was for. I think it was English, but I don’t recall why we would have a debate in an English class. Anyway, it was kind of a phony debate where each of us would act as two real life subjects. I chose Abbie Hoffman and represented the Yippies, as I recall, but can’t remember the central subject of the debate.

When my time came to talk I just started almost yelling out some Yippie manifesto thing I’d found somewhere. I wouldn’t stop for my opponent and just kept going, like Rubin does with Donohue. It was mostly, to be honest, just because I didn’t feel confident in doing the thing the way we were supposed to do it- the standard one- on- one debate.

Mr. Parham, the teacher, actually thought I did ok. He said that’s how the real Abbie Hoffman might well have handled such a situation.

As an aside, I read both of Hoffman and Rubin’s books. I thought they were great reading back then. I wonder if I’d feel the same way if I read them again today?

-i never checked him out before, the dude is on a HUGE ego trip, did you notice how he mentioned they had him on cuz they couldn’t get any music? They knew he’s was just pure entertainment value. Or worse, a mascot for halftime activities. Nothing to do with anything but bluster. “Do It” haha. Phil isn’t dumb, he played along, letting him go off on his ego rant, Phil knew it was good for the ratings. He knew he had a star. He’s like a punk rocker sans guitar. Just some punk rock shit, a guy with a big ego yelling and being belligerent, it would have been more entertaining if he would’ve stood up and played a horrendous harmonica and then puked on Phil.